


The Let Crutchie Say F*ck Fic

by WriteMeToHell



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, Angst with a Happy Ending, Child Death, Gen, I promise it's not as gritty as it sounds, Kid Blink is the best and we don't appreciate him enough, Past Character Death, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 19:23:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15201728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriteMeToHell/pseuds/WriteMeToHell
Summary: New York City, 1894- A young Charlie Morris gets advice from an unlikely source.





	The Let Crutchie Say F*ck Fic

For Charlie, the last straw was the dead horse.

It had been a lousy selling day as it was; May was one of those months in New York that seemed to be in a perpetual state of indecision on whether it wanted to still cling on the last remnants of spring or just throw in the towel and go straight to summer. Today, the latter had won out, and Manhattan had responded by letting its garbage bins bask in the open rays, giving off an unmentionable smell to whomever passed by. For the wealthier New Yorkers, this was only a temporary discomfort. But for those, like Charlie, who worked on the streets, it was like being trapped in a never ending outhouse.

Not to mention his bag got stolen back at the lodging house that morning, forcing him to take less papes than he needed today just so he could manage walking up and down the street without having to balance his crutch under one arm and his stack in the other. There was one kid, a tallish, sandy haired boy by name of Jack who offered to find the guys for him. And do what, Charlie had asked. If the two of them managed to corner the others guys there’d be no way he’d be able to hold his own in a fight. And there was no way he was going to let someone else do his battles for him. 

So Charlie had declined, and Jack had shrugged his shoulders and turned away to join the hundred other boys laughing and joking and selling their wares together. He then found his bag dropped in a garbage heap behind the lodging house. That really set the tone for the rest of his day. 

It was now midday, a few hours away from the evening edition, and Charlie was beginning to get antsy. The customers he’d had were few and far between, and the ones who bothered to look his way were what his mother used to refer to as ‘absolute characters’. His mother’s ‘absolute characters’ though had usually been snooty ladies insisting that  _ no, their head wasn’t really that size, it was her fault for making the hat wrong, and don’t think we won’t go to your manager for this _ . His took a took on an even nastier attitude. There had been the woman with too much perfume who pinched his cheeks like a baby before buying a paper. There had been the older gentleman with a thick pair of mutton chops straight out of the sixties who told Charlie about an old war buddy of his who got his leg mangled by the rebs down in South Carolina. 

“And what’s he doing now?” Charlie had asked. 

The man shrugged. “Bit the bullet last December. He couldn’t bare to be a burden to his wife and children.”

He then left without buying a paper.

And then there was the pockmarked boy, not much older than him, who unceremoniously dropped a nickel by the side of Charlie’s bad leg and stuck his hand into the stained bag to grab one of his last papes. Charlie bent down, trying to keep his weight firmly on his good leg while he maunvered his crutch into a leaning position so he could extend his hand to the ground. 

He wasn’t stupid. He knew what the boy was doing. It wasn’t much of a surprise for him when he was met by a smirking face after he finally recovered back into a standing position. The the boy was staring at his leg.

“You know,” he said, “It’s real stupid to be standing out here all day and trying to get people to feel sorry for you. You should try the circus, I’m sure they could use another gimp there.”

In another world, in another lifetime, where a million and a half things had gone differently, Charlie would’ve slugged the guy. But today, it wasn’t going to happen. Instead, he slowly turned around and hobbled back down the street, trying erase that toothy smirk from his head. _Fuck Him Fuck Him Fuck Him_. His thoughts were punctuated by the slam of his crutch against the cobblestone sidewalk. He remembered being told by one of the older boys on the first day of the job to always to remember to smile, to never disarm the customer or make them feel uncomfortable. Well, he done laying his body down for people who wouldn’t give him the time of day. They wanted a sweet newsie? They could buy their papes elsewhere. At this point he didn’t give a shit if he starved. Because Fuck. Them. Fu _ck. Them. Fuck. Them. Fuck. Them. Fuck-_

The was a shift in the cobblestones around the old street corner, and Charlie found himself making contact with the ground for the second time that day. Except this time it was unintentional. And it hurt more. Charlie bit down on his lower lip to keep from yelping in pain, and took a deep breath to brace his body for the long journey of getting back up. Then the stink hit him. A wave of shock set through his body and Charlie stuffed his face into the bend of his arm in a vain attempt to block out the smell. This was not from a garbage can. Definitely not from a garbage can. 

He hadn’t smelled anything this since his time at the hospital, when the little girl in the cot next to his stopped breathing. He didn’t think about calling out for anyone then, his own body stooped up on ten different medications that all seemed to cancel each other out. All he could do was stare in shock as the little girl decayed before his eyes. For the next three hours her body slowly began to bloat and deflate. Her skin waxed into a pasty off-green. When the flies had started to peck around her glassy, half opened eyes someone finally took notice and and the body was discreetly carried out on a stretcher.  

_ “Should someone alert the family?” _ Charlie heard one nurse whisper to the other.

_ “What’s the point? They knew she was better off dead the moment she came to the polio ward.” _

Charlie opened his eyes and craned his neck to try to find the source of the scent. The street was mostly empty, exempting the usual overflowing trash cans and a few dirty kids crowded nearby something in the gutter. He heaved himself back onto his crutch and walked over to where the smell was coming from, more out of morbid curiosity now than anything. 

Closer...closer… oh god, was that a tail? The source of the smell was now looming into view. Charlie could feel his head grow dizzy and his throat fill with bile as he took in the withered gray brown legs attached to chipped and work worn hooves, the malnourished frame contrasting with its bloated stomach, the glassy lifeless eyes. For a split second Charlie was reminded of that girl all those years ago. He quickly shook that thought from his mind. She was person, this was an animal. He shouldn’t be getting emotional about this, it was just a horse after all. Just a horse, put on this world to work and slave away for some careless human until it’s body couldn’t bare it anymore and it finally keeled over and died. No one to remember it by, no one to give it a proper burial, just a dead, dead horse whose worth was only tied to what it could physically do. 

Would anyone mourn him when his body inevitably shut down? Or would they too just toss him into the gutter? 

Charlie took a final deep breath, his senses now numb to the rot, and expertly swerved his body in the opposite direction. Then he headed to the nearest alleyway and began to puke his guts out. 

When he finally expelled every lunch, dinner, and free coffee he’d had for the two last weeks from his body, he gave a final heave and leaned against the hot brick wall. When his dizziness tampered and his vision cleared he got the second biggest surprise of his already shitty, shitty day. 

For there was none other than Kid Blink, taking a long piss at the other end of the alley. Without tampering his aim, the older boy turned to Charlie and grinned.

“Hey kid, what’s a-matter with you?”

* * *

 

“You know what your problem is kid? You think too much.”

Kid Blink had since finished emptying himself and was now closing up his trousers. Charlie looked on in a mixture of shock and embarrassment. Kid Blink was one the oldest newsies still residing at the lodging house, as well as their informal leader. He had only seen the older boy from a distance, usually tossing out orders or joking with the other regulars. It never occurred to Charlie that someone as big as Kid Blink would know who he was, much less have an educated opinion of him. 

“What’s makes you say I think too much?” That response had sounded a lot cooler in Charlie’s head. Instead it came out as squeak. So much for impressing the famous Kid Blink. He’d be just fine with the earth opening up and swallowing him whole right now, thank you very much. Kid Blink seemed unfazed as he got to his final button.

“You keep all your tension in your shoulders, see? It’s a wonder you can even move around like that. Not to mention you’re too quiet, it scares the other boys off, ya know. That’s probably why you don’t got any pals.”

Ouch. That was brutal. But at least it was truthful, unlike half the crap he’d heard from his customers today. 

“So what am I supposed to do? Smile and let them walk all over me? No one’s ever gonna respect me over there, there’s no point in trying to suck up to them.” Charlie was struck by his own brashness. Where had this come from? And in front of Kid Blink no less. Who, speaking of which, was now walking over to him with an easy lilt in his gait. Oh god, was he going to get beat up now? Kid Blink was mostly known to be a pretty fair guy, but he never shied away from using his fists to get his point across. 

But to Charlie’s surprise (and relief), the older boy simply planted his own lankier body next to Charlie’s and dug a yellowed newspaper clipping out of his trouser pocket. He unfolded and slapped it onto Charlie’s open palm with a sense of finality to it, then grinned broadly. 

“Can you read kid?”

Charlie looked down at his hand. He had been given an old cartoon advert depicting a tiny man in a military uniform. He knew the man was supposed to be small because the figure had been placed in front of a fancy looking table that towered over him in comic proportions. After some squinting Charlie could make out the caption below.

“Charles S. Stratton, known as ….General Tom Thumb? The date says it’s from ‘44, how the hell did you get this?”

“They store all them old papes in the cellar of the distribution office. I’m not one for books or any of that junk, but I like reading these. Keeps me smart, and I know things that the other boys don’t. But this guy- see this one I had to keep.” He gently rapped the picture with a dirty forefinger. “Tom Thumb, Christ, what a lucky bastard.”

“What are you talking about? The poor guy’s stuck in a freak show.” Charlie, once again, was taken aback by his own impertinence. Why hadn’t he been slugged yet?

“Yeah, but do you know how much money he made when he was still alive and kicking?” Kid Blink almost seemed enraptured by the picture. “Barnum literally  _ buys _ the guy from his parents when he’s four, puts him in a sideshow so everyone can laugh at him, and makes a shit ton of money off of him. Shit situation, right? But at some point, he made it work for him. He ate at all the best restaurants, he traveled all over the world, he met all sorts of royalty...Abe Lincoln himself went to the guy’s wedding, and that’s the truth!” 

“So what’s that got to do with me?” Charlie asked defensively.

“You say you want people to respect, right? Well, who’s gonna do it, huh? You think they’re gonna respect you?” He pointed to a well dressed couple coming up the street. “You they’re gonna respect you?” Now they were looking back at the barefoot kids by the dead horse, searching for a new curiosity to entertain themselves with. “Fuck kid, even I don’t respect you, considering we’re meeting officially for the first time and all you’ve been doing is whining and puking your guts out. The world’s a nasty place for people like us, you can’t get high expectations from it.”

“I don’t think I got high expectations, I wanna be treated like a fucking person. Is that too much to ask for?”

“For a lot of people, yeah, it is. But it don’t matter, kid. There are some people out there who are never gonna respect you. But it don’t matter as long as you respect yourself.” 

This was not what Charlie wanted to hear. Blink seemed to sense that too. His voice dropped a bit, and Charlie could almost hear a bit of sincerity in the way the older boy spoke.

“Listen, When my eye got infected I felt like I was garbage, complete trash. I didn’t want to think about it, I didn’t want anyone talking about it, I didn't want anyone looking at me. But then one day this old lady walks up to me an’ asks how I lost it. And I was so sick of hearing the same damn question over and over I made up this whole story ‘bout how my family died at sea ‘cause we got attacked by sharks and I was the lone survivor. An’ the old bird bought it!” Blink gave a barking laugh. Charlie started to grin too, despite himself. 

“She felt so bad that she bought the rest of my stack for the day. So, now every time someone asks me I say they have to buy a pape first. And I give ‘em a different story, ‘cause what the hell, it’s fun making shit up. Now I’m the highest earner in lower manhattan and everyone wants to be my partner. If I didn’t have this money maker,” he pointed to his patch, “I wouldn’t be loaded with money and nearly out of this damn place. And I know you could do the same, if you changed your mindset about it.” 

Kid Blink swiftly grabbed the clipping out of Charlie’s hand and back into his own pocket. Charlie mopped his brow with his loose sleeve. He was thirsty, he suddenly realized. He needed something clean in his mouth, something that wasn’t his own saliva. That Jack kid sometimes kept a water sack with him on hot days. Apparently he read once in a dime novel that the cowboys out west did the same thing, and being Jack, he just  _ had _ to have one of his own. Maybe he’d be willing to share…

He was shaken from his thought when he realized Kid Blink was no longer beside him. Instead, the older boy was now casually strolling back down to the other end of the alleyway. Charlie called after him. 

“Hey, listen, I really appreciate what you’re saying, but, but...it’s just so damn frustrating to deal with same stupid people all the time. It just starts to get you down, you know?”

“Yeah, I saw the way that brat with the shitty teeth was talking to you earlier, what he made you do. But here’s a question, did you get his money?” Kid Blink was now halfway down the alleyway now, a silhouette in Charlie’s line of vision. 

“Yeah?” 

“Then congratulations kid, you won.”

* * *

 

In time, things changed. Mostly for the better, to Charlie’s amazement. He decided to take up Jack offer to beat up his bag robbers, and was pleasantly surprised how much impact a crutch could have on another person’s head. The two of them were inseparable after that day. He quickly warmed up to rest of the boys, and soon found himself with the makeshift family he never knew he needed. It made selling days more bearable, and with the customers he got sometimes, god knows he needed it. 

Kid Blink’s advice worked; he no longer felt miserable after every customer interaction. He even got some enjoyment out of it; playing up the part of ’the good cripple’ to his audience while calculating how much money he could get out of it in the meantime. No matter how bad things got (and they could still get pretty bad), he never left a day empty handed.

In time, Charlie became Crutchie. 

And in time, he learned to accept it.

A year and a half after the day in the alleyway, Kid Blink left the lodging house in the middle of the night, never to be seen in New York again. He was nearing eighteen by that point,  and he’d finally gotten up enough money saved to take the train to Bar Harbor. Rumor had it he had been talking about going off to New England for a while. The ocean was apparently a lot cleaner there, he said. 

Nothing was left in his stead except his old roll up mattress and a pair of shoes that had worn through its liner…

...And a 1844 newspaper sketch of Charles Stratton, known to the world as General Tom Thumb, now with a hastily written note on the back.

_ dear Charlie, _

_ you have more self-respet then any two legged man in this god-damn city. keep your head up for the both of us now. _

_ your friend, _

_ Louis  _

**Author's Note:**

> The inspiration for the dead horse comes from this 1903 photograph- https://cdn.viewing.nyc/assets/media/b5806d55794658008bf7daefa4573bd6/elements/97847e58017e81d0b7d3ad8b47058af3/xl/c173c1e8-3b26-4020-bbed-28a1aacfdd4e_2x.jpg
> 
> The Tom Thumb pic was based off of this, though I'm not sure if it was ever published in a newspaper or not- https://lisawallerrogers.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/tom-thumb-as-napoleon-1844-carte-de-visite.jpg 
> 
> After some research, I found that the historical Kid Blink's real name was most likely Louis Baletti, though some believe it was actually Louis Ballatt http://newsieshistory.tumblr.com/post/91454605563/some-things-we-know-about-the-real-kid-blink-part  
> I decided to omit any last name from the ending of my fic out of respect for the real life Kid Blink, who's own story resembles close to nothing here, as well as the real life Crutchie's name of Morris (I'm pretty sure Charlie is a fan creation). 
> 
> This ended up being much more of challenge than I anticipated (and it ended up being a lot closer to another brotherly bonding one shot I wrote back in March, so let's just ignore that for now). Ultimately, I wanted to use this piece to talk about ableism; in 1890's America, in the Newsies musical/movie, and yeah, sometimes even within the fandom itself. Hopefully I've conveyed at least some of that, or least a message about holding onto your self worth even when the rest of the world wants to push you down. This was a tricky subject to write about, and I'm always open for discussion in the comments section if you think I got something wrong. 
> 
> Keep loving yourself guys, cause you're worth it.  
> <3 <3 <3


End file.
